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What "waftaroms" represent in the comics / FRI 7-19-24 / Physiologist whose namesake exercise is part of an Army fitness test / Final Fantasy and others, for short
Friday, July 19, 2024
Constructor: Jacob McDermott
Relative difficulty: Hard (19:06 with a couple "Check Puzzle"s)
THEME: none
Word of the Day: ODOR (What "waftaroms" represent in the comics) —
The Lexicon of Comicana is a 1980 book by the American cartoonist Mort Walker. It was intended as a tongue-in-cheek look at the devices used by comics cartoonists. In it, Walker invented an international set of symbols called symbolia after researching cartoons around the world (described by the term comicana).
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Hey squad, Malaika here! What a treat to review a themeless puzzle for once! I like my puzzles easy and themeless, and this one hit one of the marks. I really struggled to get a start on this-- absolutely fell into the [It might turn red or blue] trap, and dropped in "litmus test." (I also, slightly more embarrassingly, initially had "rizz" instead of GAME for [Flirting ability, in slang].) I was able to make consistent progress for about fifteen minutes and then I majorly stalled with everything filled but the two lower corners. It took some guessing and checking down there to get me to the end.
Also-- there were two places where I had to fully guess. The crossing of WON / LAW took me a second because I couldn't crack that fiendishly clever clue [Appealing subject?], and while I guessed that "jeon" was Korean, I totally blanked on the currency. I also didn't know the crossing of SIENA / CANA, although I guessed correct on my first try.
Looking over the grid, nothing stands out as particularly hard (I was able to plop in some of the non-ideal stuff like IN OT and YER just because I've done lots of puzzles), so I'm trying to figure out why I got such a slow start. I think it's because the cluing was trivia-heavy.
To me, trivia, more than anything else, can stretch the range of a puzzle's difficulty. Trivia is the thing that makes a puzzle a breeze to some and a struggle to others. ("What about proper nouns??" you might ask. And to you I say-- those are often a subset of trivia!) Obviously sometimes trivia is fully necessary, but here we got trivia clues for entries that could have been clued otherwise, like OPERA (Setting of a date for Edward and Vivian in "Pretty Woman") and SIENA (New York college known for opinion polling) and ODOR (What "waftaroms" represent in the comics) (Did the grammar feel weird on that to anyone else? I really wanted a plural.) and BURPEE (Physiologist whose namesake exercise is part of an Army fitness test) and NILE (River traveled by passenger boats known as dahabeahs) and NORTH POLE (Locale with the ZIP code 88888) and even BALI (Neighbor of Java) and YAM (Sub-Saharan crop). That seemed like a lot to me!!
There were also some puns that worked and others that didn't. I already mentioned [Appealing subject?] as a win. On the other end of things was [Things that are head and shoulders above the rest?] for PROFILE PICS, whose wordplay just didn't land-- I've had plenty of profile pics which feature below my shoulders... or aren't even a picture of me at all. Spinning 180 again, I'll devote several sentences to [What might prompt you to flip the bird?] for OVEN TIMER, which is one of the best clues I can remember in a long time. Changing the meaning of both "flip" and "bird" is so genius, and the "Aha!" moment was incredibly delightful and satisfying. I'll be keeping this one in my back pocket the next time I'm teaching someone how to write the perfect Question Mark Clue.
I'm running out of room in this review, so I'll close by flagging my two favorite entries-- LOVE POTION and IM ON A ROLL. The former is just so evocative and almost poetic; the latter selfishly reminds me of a puzzle I wrote from a couple months ago.
Lots of bullets today:
- [Upon which a dragonfly frequently lays its eggs] for POND — This phrasing was bonkers to me!! I have never seen phrasing for a clue like this before, and for a moment I thought this was going to be a themed puzzle.
- [Boyfriend of Nancy Drew] for NED — I was a huge reader but I never read these! In terms of mysteries, I preferred The Boxcar Children. If you're trying to buy a mystery for a kid you know, I highly recommend the Truly Devious series.
- [Farmers business: Abbr.] for INS — Please, someone, tell me what this means
- [Holiday time, informally] for VACAY — Does anyone else spell this "vaycay"? Actually, as I'm typing it, that looks dumb. Never mind.
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
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120 comments:
Similar solving experience to Malaika. Lots of open space after most of the first pass, but found traction in the SE.
Many mistakes or hesitations on entries - hold on at 27A. Resisted IN OT at 23A. Playing a sudden-death round suggests golf to me - but an entire round wouldn't be sudden death. LMAO or rofl at 33A? RAP or ReP at 38A? Had rep at first.
Was BURPEE a seed entry in the SW?
Finished in time slightly longer than recent Friday average.
I wouldn't consider the "waftaroms" clue trivia. The number of people who know that word is probably vanishingly small, but you can suss the answer out. Waftaroms looks very much like a portmanteau of waft and aroma, and a silly made-up word fits in the context of comics. Waft + aroma + comics is enough clue to figure out ODOR. I tend to like these "it looks obscure, but you can figure it out" clues.
The clue on NORTHPOLE was perhaps meant to be of the same type, but it was a bigger leap.
Farmers Insurance — I got it but I didn't like it.
Hi Malaika. This was fairly straightforward for me except I finished guessing wrong at CANE crossing GOT A BAD REP! Mental error!
Right off the bat in the upper left I got badly hung up with "Surface" = SHELL crossing "Ready for action" = HOT TO TROT. That worked so well with TENORS I had a hard time letting it go.
I have some bad news for the US Postal Service about the NORTH POLE. The Canadian postal code for letters to Santa Claus is H0H 0H0 (get it?) and I hear he lives at the north pole...
Seriously, for most of my young life the magnetic north pole was definitely in Canada, but since 1995 it's been speeding away towards Siberia. Damned Russians!
Hi Malaika,
There’s an INSurance company called FARMERS.
Diabolical!
Great writeup, Malaika! Farmers (no apostrophe) = INSurance company. ‘Til next time!
Great writeup as always, Malaika! Farmers (no apostrophe) = INSurance company. Looking forward to your next writeup! And puzzle.
Hello - This is a reposting of a comment; I'm not sure it was registered the first time. If it's duplicative, perhaps the moderator can delete one of them.
In any case - thank you for the fine write up. I was actually surprised at how easy I found this, a Friday puzzle. But perhaps that's because I knew much of the "trivia" involved. As a frequent follower of NY Times political coverage, I knew the Siena poll - it's frequently cited. And, though not a Christian, I somehow remembered Cana -it's the water turning into wine story in the NT. Living n SE Asia, Bali was a given too. And I'm an opera fan so that was an easy bit to pulll out of the memory bank
But I think your observation that trivia knowledge reflects how difficult a puzzle might be is spot on - it showed here.
Farmers is a major US Insurance Company. You might have seen some of their actually pretty clever ads starring J. K. Simmons - they are on TV all the time. So the abbreviation for Insurance is Ins. At least in the world of this puzzle. (It did take me a couple of minutes).
Again thanks for the write-up.
Easy. gEt before YER was it for erasures and no WOEs. I knew the trivia that @Malaika had problems with so this was not much of a struggle for me. What did come as a shock to me was that Gangnam Style came out in 2012…I thought it was more recent…somehow I’ve elided around half a decade,
Solid with a fair amount of sparkle, liked it.
Wikipedia: "Farmers Insurance Group (informally Farmers) is an American insurer group of vehicles, homes and small businesses and also provides other insurance and financial services products. ..."
Farmers Business = Insurance. “We are farmers, bum da dum da dum!”
re: "Farmers Business: Abbr."--notice there's no apostrophe. Farmers Insurance company.
Took me a while to get a foothold but when I gained traction things fell into place quickly. Enjoyable.
Thanks for the Malaika MFriday.
Farmers is an INSurance company :)
Farmer’s is an insurance company.
Ins = insurance!
Hello Lorna DOONE my old friend, you've come to help my solve again. Where have you been? She's made 37 appearances, per xwordinfo.com, in the Modern Era, the last time before today in 2020. She's almost always clued as the title character of the historical romance novel and never as the Nabisco Lorna DOONE brand of shortbread cookies.
Thought I had discovered a new word PROFILEPICS. Judging from the clue "Things that are head and shoulders above the rest", it looked like it might be some kind of neural disorder involving repetitive uncontrollable spastic upper body movements that prevent the sufferer from ever getting any "rest". Oh, PROFILE PICS. Boring.
I feel duty bound to point out that the grid fill did get some assistance from the EXTRA helpful two for one POC (plural of convenience) where a Down and an Across both get a letter count boost by sharing a final S. There are three including where a two-fer is most likely to occur, in the lower rightmost square.
I, too, like an easy themeless when it provides a goodly number of sparklers. That didn't happen here. Flipping-the-bird was one of the few bright clues.
With the campaign dominating the news, strange that red and blue suggested chemistry to Malaika.
Very challenging in the NW, Medium-Challenging the rest of the way.
Overwrites:
My 5D fable was the fox and the Dove before it involved an ANT
9D: POP TOP can before LID, quickly fixed by LMAO at 33A
My 14D choir members were basseS before they were TENORS (hi, @okanaganer), which made Nancy Drew's boyfriend sam before he was NED, which in turn made 7D firm before it was AGED. All this was straightened out (eventually) when 6A couldn't be anything but LAW.
26D: My cliché was I am humbled before it was IT'S AN HONOR
31D: I'M ON A tear before ROLL
35A: Farmers business was agr until I noticed that there was no apostrophe in the clue (hi, @DrSparks)
39D: Bleats before BAAING
48D: fijI before BALI
WOE:
BURPEE (48A) as anything but a seed company
@Anoa Bob: Lorna DOONE (15D) would have been a great help to me too, except I misread the clue as "Loma" and was thinking it was some romance novelist I'd never heard of until DOONE became inevitable.
I agree: kinda easy, lotsa fun, pretty punny. I WENT BANANAS over some of it.
BTW, I’ve been meaning to ask: where’s Will these days? Is he ok? Is he retiring? Inquiring minds want to know.
For whatever reason this played well better than my average Friday time. I actually expected Rex to post a very easy and ruin it for me. I thought pop top lid was awful. Liked love potion.
My apologies for this late comment on yesterday's missed opportunities (I hadda go to my own birthday party), but the constructor and editor really might really have done better to make the theme interesting, besides STAR-COMET-NOVA, ASTRONAUT, WORMHOLEs (and the three wormhole jumps, which I thought were cute). My coulda/shoulda clue list:
31A: SciFi crewdog: SPACER
41A: Cosmic clouds between us and Milky Way, astronomy's Great ____: RIFTS
52A: Lightyears past: EONS AGO
59D: Cold War defense interceptor missile: NIKE
Wikipedia has some interesting photos of the Great Rift.
JimG
The Farmers business:”ins” stands for insurance, Farmers Insurance
Malaika, I read the PROFILE PICS clue differently. I don’t think it refers to what is IN the picture. I think it means that the profile pic (which is usually someone’s head and shoulders) is above everything else (“the rest”) on the page. Reading it that way, I liked it. And I agree the “flipped a bird” clue was outstanding.
This was easy for me - only a minute slower than my Friday record. Agree that’s probably because a lot of the “trivia” was in my wheelhouse or easily guessable. I tend to know more PPP than most commenters here, who usually hate it. And I love trivia like learning what waftaroms are (makes total sense when you picture those stinky wavy lines in cartoons) and remembering that BURPEE is not only a seed company but also a military exercise. I have no idea where I picked up that one since “military” and “exercise” (for the sake of exercise, that is) are two things not associated with me.
Anyway, I started with a bang with AVILA, then struggled a bit before Rex’s beloved Friday whooshing started for me. Then, I’M IN A ROLL!
I found it easy, maybe because I caught on to the Friday-style cluing. A very pleasant half-hour after yesterday's debacle.
Can anyone explain the Farmers clue?
I AM HUMBLED (Conrad @5:22) makes sense at 26D. With just the T from SWING STATE, I very confidently typed in STUTTERING. I should've seen it was wrong from the clue on MOI but instead I only erased it after finishing the SW with WENT BANANAS.
PROFILE PICS totally threw me for a loop even when I had PROF___CS. I had the same thought as Malaika, propics aren't passport photos, they could be anything.
Re: trivia clues - OPERA in the NE is maybe a bit overkill because of the two proper nouns that just have to have trivia-based clues. BURPEE I actually knew because I used a similar clue in one of my Crosshare puzzles. 37A is the kind of trivia clue I like, seems totally uninferrable but it actually gives you a hint (the word "waft" in this case, if you spot it).
My fastest Friday ever! Though I found all the trivia pretty easy to parse even when I didn’t know it cold. Waftaroms, for example, looks like “waft” and “aroma” so figured that out. And once I had NORTH I figured it either had to be someplace in Hawaii (North Oahu? Maui?) cause their area code is 808, or NORTH POLE, cause obviously 88888 is extreme. So I wouldn’t say the trivia is all stuff you need to know cold to get.
Anyway, guessing right on LOVE POTION (was either gonna be that or WITCH’S BREW) led me down the right path and I flew through this one. Great puzzle!
Hand up for LITMUS TEST. :)
I had a surprisingly easy time with this one - must be a wavelength thing, but the answers just seemed to drop for me. Sticky spots were the dreaded trivia Q at 1A, which I always hate (some Saint’s birthplace) and I had CANe for CANA (I just thought of “bad rep” and moved on).
Also a little bit of a struggle in the SW, where I needed all of the crosses to parse together BURPEE. I don’t recall any real “groaner” clues, which is definitely unusual. Unfortunately, we continue to be served up another portion of text-speak, which is the CrossWorld equivalent of canned peas. Once a week is too often, these guys serve it every other day.
I must’ve been on the same wavelength as the constructor because this was the easiest Friday I’ve ever done.
Quite good!
Thanks, Todd! me, to!
In response to Stuart: my understanding is that Will is on medical leave recovering from a stroke.
This is a lovely grid design, where the answers are well connected, that is, no isolated islands. There are also 14 longs (answers of eight letters or more), which not only add interest, but add a layer of fun – trying to guess long answers with as few crosses filled in as possible.
And speaking of adding interest, many bravos to Jacob for taking a drab answer – OVEN TIMER – and electrifying it with that scintillating flip-the-bird clue.
Random thoughts:
• Sweet to see an extremely-rare-in-crosswords six-letter semordnilap (NOTNOW).
• Splendid echo in GAME touching corners with RPGS.
• [Long ride] for LIMO reminded me of another clue for that word that I like: [Something that’s long and steep?].
• Would have been cool if answer #6 (down) – LOVE POTION – would have been #9.
One of the gifts Crosslandia bestows are those moments of astonishment where a word that lay dormant in some brain nook for decades – a word one forgot one knew – joyfully pops out in answer to a clue. That happened to me three times today, in AVILA, DOVER, and CANA.
Thank you, Jacob, for wows like that, and a fill-in that pushed happy buttons and felt most satisfying – I loved this!
I smiled when I realized that BALI was low in the grid instead of Hai.
Anon @2:49: I think it’s Bum da da dum bum bum bum bum.
Great review Malaika!
BAAING? Boo!
Otherwise, a terrific puzzle.
AVILA was a gimme and led me to believe that this would be a speed solve. Nope. I did get ARISE but wanted ASS instead of ANT, which is what I get from doing too many NYT xwords recently. NE was not much help, never saw "Pretty Woman". Finally tried DOVER which led to OVENTIMER and things started flowing. POPTOPLID didn't seem like a familiar term and then I remembered that I've been opening cans of cat food with said LID every day for years now. Come on man.
POISON before POTION. Wrong kind of fairy tale. Always assumed it was a "burpie" and was produced by doing the exercise. Learn something every day.
Nice crunchy Friday, JMD. Just Maybe Dug a little deep with the cluing misdirection, but I appreciate the shout out to TENORS, and thanks for all the fun.
Hey All !
A bit tougher than FriPuzs have been lately. Stuck in every section, but managed to suss everything out, finishing to the sweet sounds of the Happy Music.
Wanted NORTH bend for a while for NORTH PILE. Shouldn't the zip be 99999?
Some nice entries, ala WENT BANANAS, LOVE POTION. The LID of POPTOPLID has gone from the vernacular. Come to think of it, POPTOP is also gone. Aren't the things on soda cans POP TABS? I guess they can be either. I remember PULL TABS where the part you used to pull open a soda (or beer) can came off. Bars would often have containers placed around to collect them.
Friday is AFOOT, even though I'm not RARIN TO GO. Have a good day!
Two F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
I didn't know I knew AVILA, but somehow it emerged from the back of my brain. I definitely did not know SIENA, but the crosses were (for me) fair with the wedding at CANA popping up often enough (e.g. in paintings) to be solid.
I know of BURPEEs but did not know the origin.
Went to a really bad Cardi B concert last night: I GOT A BAD RAP.
The Searchers
That must be some LOVE POTION -- it's crossed by RARIN TO GO.
My mother's sister was named Penelope. We called her Auntie Penny.
Must've been on the right wavelength for one as I flew right through it, though i'll admit to letter bombing the SIENA/CANA natick until I got the happy music.
Happy Malaika MFriday.
This gunky little mess was definitely not on my wavelength, but still enjoyed the longer phrases when they finally popped into play, and it did try to be funny. Turns out WENT BONKERS is the same length as WENT BANANAS and all of it led to craziness in the middle of the puzzle. HOLD ON is also the same length as NOT NOW and that made me Wait! too.
That's cute trivia about the North Pole zip code, eh?
Propers: 5
Places: 8
Products: 3
Partials: 6
Foreignisms: 3
--
Gary's Grid Gunk Gauge: 25 (36%)
Recipes: 0 (beta)
Funnyisms: 5 😄
Tee-Hee: Flip the bird. Oooh, that bird.
Uniclues:
1 Director's complaint she can't get everyone to sing on key.
2 Poor review of flatulent emanations on a recent elevator ride.
3 How national politicians are tackling carbon emissions.
4 ET ship on a galaxy tour.
5 Male popular music.
6 Funny photo of flat fruit-flavored fountain drink.
7 What ewe do in Cairo.
1 I CAN'T EVEN OPERA
2 ODOR GOT A BAD RAP
3 SMOG ALERT LOLLS (~)
4 UFO'S WIDE VACAY
5 TENOR'S GAME
6 AGED FANTA MEME
7 NILE BAAING
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: Where I intend to host my next pity party. OH WOE IS ME ARENA.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Easy. No trouble with things that stumped @Malaika. Possibly age related! As a kid in the early 60s I read every Nancy Drew, but was still surprised that NED popped right in.
Times/SIENA pretty well known. BURPEE took a hot sec but got the double E and then it was obvious.
Liked I CANT EVEN and GOT A BAD RAP.
It's good to have Malaika reviews because it shows the age group usually targeted by the clues. My mother, an inveterate [ottocorrect just changed that to "invertebrate", gd help us if that's how intelligent AI is going to be] crossworldian, always said that crosswords are for old folks!
I really like laid-back BALI. I'm not as fond of RARINTOGO.
Santa ((who loves a CANA FANTA) has a descriptor on his business card, just above his 88888 zip code. It says "HASSLED - will travel."
Sound of a gun as reported by a Mississippian: BAAING!
Now I'd just like to make sure that @Malaika understands the Farmers clue.............
Real fun Friday. Right in my House o' Wheels. Thanks, Jacob McDermott.
Medium/challenging for a Friday. Agreed, lots of open space at first but in the end didn’t actually take very long. Helps that I know what burpees are. Last square was the L in BALI. Not a lot of whoosh today but I enjoyed sorta hacking away at it and piecing sections together. Also had rizz before GAME. Also did not like the clue for PROFILE PICS, thigh in retrospect I suppose it’s typically a pic of head and shoulders that is above the rest of the (online) profile, so it works.
I was doing quite well on this until the NE corner.
Putting HOLDON where NOTNOW belonged caused initial delays.
Then My incorrect SNAPONLID over POPTOPLID gave me quite a bit of grief until I finally put in DOONE. Finally, because I thought it had no E, and must be romance novelist I had not heard of.
My last entry was the crossing of SIENA/CANA
Two thumbs up on your review, Malaika!
Even with lots of crosses, I was very slow in coming up with the wonderfully clued SWING STATE. But at least I wasn't confused by the whole LITMUS TEST thing because a mental block prevented me from coming up with LITMUS TEST, even though I tried.
My other favorite clue was for OVEN TIMER. I hope Lewis will list it this week.
An early reader, I am told that I had much of Nancy Drew before I was even in school. But did I remember NED today? No. I didn't even remember she had a boyfriend, to tell the truth. Did any other Nancy Drew readers here remember NED? I'm curious if my memory is just bad or if NED is truly unmemorable.
A word about IRATE. I am IRATE that the beautiful word "incandescent" -- which I associate both with warm light and with a smile that could light up the whole world -- has been twisted into meaning IRATE. Who did this??? Aren't there enough words for angry in our vocabulary? Shame on you!
More rant coming: With climate change upon us, I'm afraid that the incandescent bulb must sadly go the way of the rotary phone. But tell me, ladies: Would you rather your boyfriend NED had had his first glimpse of you in florescent light...or in LED light...or in halogen light? I rest my case.
I found this puzzle lively, well-clued, somewhat challenging, and a lot of fun.
Briefly got caught up on mixing up CANA with Canaan in my head (the latter being the name of a biblical region whereas the former is a town). Otherwise super breezy and fun! Also great puzzle recently Malaika!!
Fiendishly clever Friday that had a lot of sparkle. I was able to do the “eureka” biz for ALMOST the whole puzzle and then…I stared forever at 13A…I had filled in WeN Instead of WON, and had NO idea that “incandescent” could mean IRATE (I think along the lines of “radiant”) PLUS I had an inexcusable brain glitch with AGED cheeses so the G was blank. My staring at it only produced the thought RAnINTOme…D’OH! All of THAT is MY bad, because this was a fun puzzle!
Malaika, I think that you will NOW forever remember that Farmers is an insurance company…and btw…I skipped that clue and got it from crosses.
This was one of the easiest Friday puzzles I've done in a long time; felt very much like a Monday. Just one gimme after another. More like this, please!
Thank you!
Anoa Bob thinks of Nabisco cookies, not the literary character, Lorna Doone. From my (minimally tv options) upbringing, when I hear that name I think of the wordplay from a Three Stooges episode…
Moe, to a Scottish lass, “What might your name be?”
Christine McIntyre, frequent character actress, “I’m Lorna Doone”
Shemp, extending his hand, “Hi Lorna, How ya’ doone?”
Lowbrow, yes. Precursor to the Dad pun genre, maybe. Appreciated more often by males than females, absolutely.
@Nancy, in answer to your question, I’m either pleased or embarrassed to tell you that I remembered that Nancy Drew’s boyfriend was NED. His last name MIGHT have been Nickerson. Her father was Carson, an attorney, and ONE of her two best girlffriends was a brunette called George and was athletic. I cannot remember her other friends name but she was blonde and portrayed as “nonathletic.” Nancy was described as having “Titian” hair… I would gladly give up this space in my mental file cabinet for worthwhile info if I could.
Correction: I am told that I had READ much of Nancy Drew...
@jberg here—I got lucky, but solving tricks helped. Four letter river:NILE, three letter Asadoorian thing: fox or ANT. For letter Indonesian island: BALI. But far too milich obscure trivia.
@Nancy 9:22 AM
I think I speak for most gents when I say we're happy to see you ladies in any light available, or no light whatsoever, so please don't trouble yourselves with changing the bulbs.
On a side note, your comment reminds me of the Seinfeld episode where his girlfriend is pretty in some lighting and not so pretty in other lighting so he only wants to be with her in the booth by the window at the coffee shop.
K-pop always means BTS, thought I.
But I was also sure of PENNYANTE. Took awhile to see SMOGALERT to suss out PSY.
From there gimmes like DOONE, EXTRA/TAXI, TENORS, NERO, etc. gave me just enough to woosh thru the rest.
Fine Friday.
Usually on the same wavelength as Malaika (scored a PR on her puzzle last Friday), but this actually played pretty easy for me as well. Middle of the puzzle took me a bit longer but just kind of made steady progress until the puzzle was done.
Like some others, this was a wavelength thing for me and I believe my fastest Friday ever.
Couple of Hidden Diagonal Word (HDW) clues/answers:
1. Fizz-berry?
2. Cry when you don't get the Happy Music
3. Some Scots call it a peg
(In honor of the OPen Championship)
Answers:
1. SLOE (from the POC S in 49D, UFOS)
2. NOOO (the N in 20D, NILE)
3. TEE (the T in 20A, NOT NOW--you can add the D for TEED and notice its bug-repelling semordnilap DEET)
And the BEETS go on ...
@Beezer (9:47) -- Wow!!!!!
Her girlfriend was "George" -- a brunette and athletic???
Your memory's astounding and mine is pathetic!
agreed re: too much trivia although the crosses bailed me out. for pretty woman my mind got stuck on polo and picnic. POPTOPLID feels like a lid too far. does a pop top even have a lid or is it merely part of the container? my initial incorrect answer of “mmgs” (thinking “mmo”) for final fantasy saved me from “litmus test” just as i was about to fill it in.
The trick is the lack of an apostrophe.
I initially WENT BONKERS until I flipped the POP-TOP LID off a FANTA.
I really enjoyed this lively puzzle, whether it was RARIN' TO GO or already WENT BANANAS. Nothing PENNY ANTE about the cluing, either, with the one for OVEN TIMER belonging in the Hall of Fame. I also liked seeing PROFILE PICS gradually develop and learning that 1) there's a word for those squiggly lines around stinky items in the comics, 2) the NORTH POLE has a zip code, and 3) BURPEEs are named after a physiologist. Solving - AVILA x ARISE x I CAN'T EVEN x LOVE POTION gave me such a good start in the NW that I thought I was ON A ROLL - until getting bogged down in the middle. I had to go the bottom to YER MESAS and work my way back up. Had fun all the way (admittedly helped by luck of the draw on knowing today's names).
@Sir Hillary from yesterday - Thank you for telling us about Patrick Berry's Teleportland puzzle. I found it online and spent a few hours wrestling with it last night. Man, tough! I've been doing cryptics for years and am familiar with the tricks of the trade, but I've been able to unlock fewer than half the clues - and have only one "for sure" answer entered in the grid. For anyone one else who enjoys Patrick Berry and cryptics, here's a PDF of the puzzle.
I found this pretty easy, the corners generally fell into place after getting one clue in each. Almost beat my fastest Friday time.
I wasn’t a huge fan of RARINTOGO as it felt a bit forced, and PENNYANTE tripped me up for a bit as I had PENNYSLOT followed by PENNYBETS before getting the right answer. Otherwise fairly straightforward.
One of the easiest Fridays I’ve ever done,
LMAO with commentariat in rare form today. Just too many cute responses to thank you all, but be assured that I and many others are delighted by this moment of brightness to pierce our cultural miasma. You actually got me out of my lurking lair.
Oh, I loved the puzzle today! Basted the bird easily, but my litmus was truly tested. Mfriday’s trivia were all gimmies for this old bird. Thanks to malaika for giving OFL a VACAY & to Jacob whose grid prompted the best responses in a LIMOS time!
I think (but I'm not sure) that I like some useless popular tidbits on a Friday. For instance....I had no idea that LMAO means "laughing my ass off." Then I got to thinking....How do you laugh your ass off? Where did my ass go? When I laugh I certainly don't lose my ass. Something for @Gary J to ponder.
Next! Ok, so I start with AVILA because everyone that went to SIENA college knows that St. Teresa was born there. I wonder what Donald Duck's address is. LAW didn't fool me and POND came in next. So am I gonna be on a roll here?...maybe be a penny pincher or be a PENNY ANTE. MOI?
BURPEE? So if you want to go into the Army you need to exercise a BURPEE? Hmmm. Food for thought. RPGS? Where have you been my whole life? I have no idea what Final Fantasy does but it doesn't sound like fun when you have to do those RPGS.... Might I toss in a little PSY?
In the end...I finished and I liked it. I had no trouble with the longies and I loved the cluing for OVEN TIMER and SWIG STATE.
I tuned into the RNC last night and I never heard our ex say IT'S AN HONOR. I think GOT A BAD RAP might've been uttered along with HASSLED. AHEM....Also some BAAING. And last but not least... YER out! GAME on and print up some more PROFILE PICS for YER Tees.
In connection with Nancy's bulbs -- it's been a while since I foisted my bulb joke on you (again):
How many cruciverbalists does it take to change a light bulb?
Eleven: Five down, and six across.
Never mind that it makes no sense. What's nice about it is you can pick any numbers that strike you as funny at the moment.
Hi Malaika - nice to see you again :)
I struggled with this. PROFILE PICS, BURPEE & I never know anything about the BTs. But it was fun struggling. I really liked OVEN TIMER. Thanks, Jacob :)
@Nancy
Little blue roadster!
I’m addicted to Lorna Doone cookies. We have a whole basket of six packs at work. So soft and buttery! Try to only eat four of the six :).
Carson was Nancy Drew's father and I think he was a judge. Her other friend was Bess. Like Beezer, I don't know why I remember these silly facts some 70+ years after binging on those books. Maybe I remember them because I was a lot older than Nancy when I read them.
Lotsa great fillins in this themeless rodeo.
faves included: IMONAROLL [Better clue: {Proud boast from cinnamon?} ].LOVEPOTION. RARINTOGO. WENTBANANAS [love them neutrinos]. OVENTIMER & SWINGSTATE clues.
staff weeject pick: INS. Sneaky abbreve meat clue for a regular plural word. Farmers Insurance. har
best SUSword: BAAING.
15-Down gets the Nanosecond Grabber Award [ITSANHONOR for Ms. DOONE, no doubt]. This is because I read the clue as: {LOMA of romance}. Darn r-n combo looked just like an m, to m&e.
Thanx for the fun challenge, Mr. McDermott dude. Smoooth stuff. Luved the double-L black square acrobatics, in yer puzgrid. A neat new look.
Masked & Anonymo1U [s]
**gruntz**
"We are Farmers! Bump a dump bump bump bump bump!
I found it to be pretty easy, but I think I was (most of the time) in sync with the cluing. The only real problem area for me was the BURPEE/GAME/BEETS/AHEM region. BURPEE makes me think of the seed catalog, not fitness tests, so I stared at BURP__ for the longest time. And I had AHOY instead of AHEM, which set up GAY_ which was a further mystery. I actually like BEETS on a salad, but I didn’t think that was a mainstream thing.
ok, I think every by now know Farmers is an insurance company. oy vey. too too.
I found this pretty easy for a Friday. And I don’t really think some of these answers qualify as trivia - I would say that lorna DOONE, SIENA polls, BURPEE, the strait of DOVER, all seem to me to be in-the-culture knowledge, although perhaps not all well remembered, and are fair Friday fare. Nancy Drew’s boyfriend is definitely (old) trivia, but for me, a Nancy Drew fan from an early age, NED Nickerson was a gimme.
My complaint is about texting shorthand. Can we be done with it? Ugh!
+1 for Litmus Test going right in the first time!
Will Shortz might not return as puzzle editor? He returned to his NPR Weekend Sunday Edition spot (8:40 AM) in April after having a stroke in February. He sounded not unlike a current presidential candidate – old, weak, and hoarse. However he has been sounding a bit stronger and clearer each week. Since he returned there three months ago, maybe he has no plans to return to the NYT, or maybe doing both jobs is too much for him for now. Only speculating.
78 comments already so I'm going to post and then read. Not my fave thing to do. Sorry if I just repeat others but have to be on the road in a few minutes.
36A SIENA College. Why???
23A INOT, not briefly? At least 33A LMAO referred to textspeak to justify itself.
16A ICANTEVEN. Do people actually say this? I might say “I cant even imagine what that was like” or “I can’t even picture that”, but not ICANTEVEN.
10D what kind of bird are you going to flip in your oven? When we cook holiday meals there is almost always a bird involved, usually referred to as “The Bird”. As in, “I’m still working’ on this sauce. Can you check The Bird?” But I can’t remember ever flipping an oven cooked fowl. I know they wanted to make a play on flipping the bird but they were trying too hard.
And what exactly is a POPTOPLID 9D?
A number of nice words (RARINTOGO, PROFILEPICS, PENNYANTE, SMOGALERT) but some of the cluing was strained. See PROFILEPICS and OVENTIMER.
Liked “Alley ways” for LANES 49D
@MJB…Bess! Yes! I think in early books Carson was a criminal attorney? And @Smith…I almost mentioned the “roadster” because I had to ask my older sister (I inherited HER books) what kind of car a roadster was. @Nancy…fuhgeddabout whether you remember Nancy Drew stuff. YOUR mental file cabinet is filled with a TON of things I don’t know OR if I did, remember.
Please tell me I’m not the only person who saw WENTBA______ and immediately filled in WENTBATSHIT, surprised and impressed that the NYT was willing to go there…
Farmer's spent 98 million in advertising in 2020 including for the TV jingle that goes :"We are Farmers dah da dah da dah dah dah" Apparently wasted on Malaika
I had the same thought on waftaroms! But can someone tell me, does the army pt test really now include burpees? Last I knew it was just run, push-ups, and sit-ups!
@Gill I. your LMAO comment brought to mind the Finnish comedian Ismo's routine "Ass is the most complicated word in the English language". It's bad ass funny!
A tough one for sure… Ease before sate. And hold on before not now
Oh, cute!! (Malaika and the Farmers clue.) Made me laugh out loud. Do you think it was explained enough?
Today I dug myself a trap in the NW. I threw down AVILA at 1A and no crosses worked for me. 1D was vague, 2D was screaming Christmas, 3D was more a luminous incandescence than heat. I considered rimed for a winter coat for 4D, looking for the misdirection, and finally, didn't know that particular Aesop fable.
Moved on to the center section and got TO GO in place crossing TENORS. I was guessing 16A would be a play on "well I nEVEr so NEVER held up that sector.
Now I crossed out AVILA because, in my crafty way, I decided the clue for 1A was a misdirection because AVILA is always the answer for that clue but Mother Teresa is a saint also now, so I made a guess that she was born in Delhi which didn't work any better for the crosses.
I finally saw RARIN and I CAN'T EVEN after the rest of the puzzle was complete and untangled that mess. Whew.
Thanks for the challenge, Jacob McDermott!
This has been such a fun week of guest personalities. Seeing a string of others' takes on puzzles has been such fun, and each time we see repeat substitutes, I feel more connected to the guests-get to know them a little more. I always enjoy you, Malaika; we seem to be on the same wavelength almost all the time.
I could also hear @Rex during my solve today. Some of the spots just whooshed themselves in, and then I'd come to sudden unceremonious stops with nothing and my brain froze. I did a whole lot of guessing based on the realization that I was not often channeling our constructor's wavelength, and struggling with some really tough clues, or clues that simply made me think about what Jacob McDermott was trying to tell me. In my opinion, a pretty snazzy Friday.
Started out with a gimme. St. Teresa of Avila is one of the saints I know something about, and I spent one of the most pleasant weekends in my life walking through the streets of AVILA with my husband meeting people, stopping in bars to have a glass of wine or sangria, and enjoying tapas late at night in places with such powerful live music, much of it Spanish folk based. I moved over to find the LAW indeed appealing. I was fortunate to have written for two Justices of the Oklahoma Supreme Court during my career so the "appealing" clue while easy, also gave me a chuckle. Most of us don't find having to appeal "appealing." It means we lost and it's a very expensive and time consuming part of the practice. Most judges protect their record carefully while litigants try to protect their clients by making sure to make a record of any rulings that don't go their way in order to protect their records. It's quite a dance. Often more like boxing.
Some really good clues today too. My favorites were: "it might turn red or blue" for SWING STATE and the cherry on top of my Friday Sundae was "things that are head and shoulders above the rest?" which took me a very long time to suss out. Thankfully, the crosses gave me the OF of PROFILE very quickly, but it took me a rather long trip around he entire NE to finally understand that the clue was referring to the little avatar pictures "head and shoulders above the rest" of everything else in oh, for instance, these blog comments That one is a genius clue.
A super Friday, even though that dang Farmers Insurance commercial - you know "We are Farmers . . .dah-dah-dah-dah-dah-dah-dah!" earworm for apparently the remainder of the day. Thank you not thank you, Mr. McD. But no four because I loved the puzzle Best Friday in quite a while (for me).
I never saw any of those commercials -- I don't watch broadcast TV, if that's where they are, but I did know of the existence of Farmers Insurance. It never occurred to me here, though -- I got INS from crosses, and thought it must be wrong, until suddenly I saw the abbreviation.
@Ride the reading -- no one else seems to have appreciated your seed entry joke, but I thought it was the best comment today.
@Roo, your comment about the NORTH POLE zip code sent me down a rabbithole. My first reaction was that the codes run from low numbers in the East to high ones in the West, and the pole is due North from Kansas (well, that's how it looks on a Mercator projection of the USA); then I realized of course that the North Pole is due North of everything -- and not West of anything at all. I guess it would make sense to include it with Alaska. But then I went and looked it up, and it turns out the full place name is NORTH POLE DC!
Thanks for all the Nancy Drew knowledge, everyone!
@GILL I. 11:25 AM
LMAO: A Cautionary Tale
(Note: The moderators on this blog are less amused by my tee-hee-ery than they could be, so I am replacing the A-word from LMAO with the word Albatross to avoid over Albatrossification of our delightful Friday banter.)
I'm unsure if I've demonstrated through my carefully crafted daily droplets of unassailable wisdom posted here to enlighten the masses struggling in darkness that I also have a whimsical side. In life I've found I'm faced with two choices: Shall I respond to this stimuli with arms folded and judgmental harumphing, or will curiosity and jocularity rule the day? Merriment turns out to be wildly unpopular among some, but I regularly follow it down the primrose path of amusement and laugh my Albatross off. When this happens, I usually set my Albatross aside on a shelf like an elf, or in the corner where it won't get kicked, or occasionally on the kitchen counter where I run the risk of having my Albatross chewed. Later, when the laughter abates, I reattach my Albatross with a staple gun. In the past, there's been occasions when I've left my Albatross "behind" (ehem) and when this situation "rears" its ugly head, I will normally wear Albatross-less chaps having grown up partly on a ranch and partly in shady nightclubs of the 80s. The moral, I think, is to take caution when you laugh your Albatross off or you might end up kissing your Albatross goodbye.
Right on my wavelength. Easy and lots of fun.
Everyone was so eager to explain the devious Farmers clue, they forgot to brag about not knowing what RPGS are!
Loved OVENTIMER as much as everyone else :)
Hmmm. I had completely the opposite experience. Easiest Friday I can ever remember. The only *real* curveball was the Burpee test. Otherwise, 10:30 time for me, absolutely unheard of for my Fridays, which I usually find harder than Saturdays. Maybe it was in part because there were, as far as I could tell, no mistakes, and all the clue-answer pairs were fair.
Will is recovering. His voice is getting stronger weekly on NPR
@Nancy and @Beezer - When trying to figure which choir section - I tried Tenors and NED came racing to the fore from my memory banks! But reading about George and the non athletic blond really made me smile. How did I miss that Nancy had Titian hair? As a little red haired girl in the 50's and 60's - I would have loved to think of her as a role model. I was tormented for my "Titian" hair. Didn't learn to love it until it all went blondish gray!
After a first pass through of the puzzle, with few answers besides Avila, Ned, aged, and tenors, I went back to the NW got Lined, then vacay - and then the puzzle almost whooshed for me!!! My second best Friday time.
Apologies, everyone, because once again I misremembered something from my childhood. It's not the Nancy Drew books that I was reading when I was pre-school age; it was The Bobbsey Twins. Since I don't remember a single word from a single book in either series, I can only assume that The Bobbsey Twins was more geared towards the younger reader than Nancy Drew was. Anyway, since at that age I was not only reading The Bobbsey Twins but the A.A. Milne verses, and since no one can read EVERYTHING at the same time, I can only assume that I read Nancy Drew at an age that was much more akin to the age everyone else here read it.
Which makes it even more appalling that I don't remember a single character in it -- not even one.
@Nancy Drew devotees- This is all fine and dandy but I'm hoping there will be equal time devoted to The Hardy Boys in the near future.
He dicho.
Les S. More
About “birds”. I know little about cooking but I have heard of people doing it halfway through.
You said “I can’t remember “ then criticized the clue. Just because we don’t know doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. Clue was fine
Ditto for I can’t even. It first became popular with “Valley speak” quite a while back. But it still exists.
Anoa Bob
Thanks for the clip
Very funny. Never heard of him.
Will is on leave while he recovers from a heart related issue. Still miss LMS and her wit….
Thought the puzzle was easy till the SW corner, which I found hard. Ended up average for me. Took a while to get POLE (NORTH cape or something?). BURPEE. Oh that’s the origin of the word for the exercises my nephew tries to get me to do which I only do in his presence
Liked the puzzle.
Things like LAW CANA (I was very surprised that some characterized it as naticky- one of the most well known stories in the NT can’t be!) and DOVER were gimmes for me.
BTW on Fridays & Saturdays the Times frequently dispenses with abbr. or for short. They have been doing that as long as I remember. Why are people still complaining about say INOT?
Yet others objected to RARINTOGO an old colloquial term properly signaled by informal Why did they object to it? I thought it was a n easy on the nose answer.
Late to this, but I am amused by the difference in ease, I found it refreshingly straightforward for a Friday. It helped that I knew AVILA right off the top, and most of the trivia, doubtless in part because I am one of The Olds.
Usually, I struggle with something that the blog says was super-easy. Luck of the draw on niche literacy and trivia, which usually puts me at a disadvantage, so it's refreshing to have it go the other way once in a while!
@Anon 6:33 pm.
As you say, you "know little about cooking" which is why I'd love to see you try to "flip" a 15 pound turkey half way through its cook. Not necessary. Just let it roast, adjust the heat if needed, change positions in the oven, whatever, but no "flipping".
As for Valley Speak. Never my thing. Not my thing now.
If you spatchcock a bird, you can cook it skin-side down at first and then flip it to finish cooking…
On the topic of Will Shortz, he was the author of today's NYT Word Puzzle.
Villager
Farmers is an insurance company
@Nancy and @MJB
Let’s not forget Hanna Gruen, Nancy and Carson’s housekeeper. And that Bess was “plump.” Oh how I loved those books!
Nancy Drew’s boyfriend was Ned Nickerson. Why this is taking up room in my brain… I guess for crosswords.
Since the clue was Nancy Drew, shouldn’t the answer be first/last name as well?
But I guess if they just said Nancy, it wouldn’t be enough of a clue.
Now this is how I remember Friday and Saturday puzzles! This may even skew towards Saturday difficulty. Nice for a change because the late week puzzles have gotten easier and easier.
It’s just the worst when my trainer smiles and says it’s time to do Burpees…
Pretty good. Except for RPGS and PSY. SIENA and DOONE were unknowns to me but I was able to solve them via the crosses.
Thanks so much for providing that link, Carola!
Medium-challenging for me; the SE looks like a bomb hit it. Main culprit was that non-silence thing. Six letters starting B_____ = BLEATS, of course! Then when WENTBANANAS became obvious, I had to switch to BA____. Well, okay, BAABAA.
But no. In the meantime I was struggling with over the top: OUTRE. The TR was already in. Um, no again. Had to fix that to EXTRA to get TAXI...Good golly what a mess! Then at last I found SMOGALERT, which forced BAAING.
Compared to the SE, the rest of it seemed almost easy. This grid has a great deal of live-wire answers, and enough misdirection to warrant the Friday slot. Birdie.
Wordle par.
GOT GAME?
I YAM NOT what I YAM,
and NOW, I’M NOT A goner,
but ICAN’TEVEN STATE, “Ma’am,
GO SLOW” when I’M HONOR.
--- NERO DOONE
One write-over with ulTRA before EXTRA. Didn't know BURPEE was named after a person. All you SWINGSTATE folks get your head on straight. It's SAID there's a DAIS in the corners.
Wordle par.
This puzzle was the opposite of hard…one of my fastest Fridays ever…RPG was the only holdup until EYE DROP fell. Bring on Saturday!
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